Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) protocol (described in draft-ietf-net1mm-proxymip6-06.txt herein included by reference) is an ongoing activity, which aims essentially to provide network based mobility. The main concept is to trick the mobile node (MN) into believing that it is always attached to its home network even when in reality, it has switched to foreign network(s). Consequently, the MN can keep using its IP home address (HoA) while being located away from its home network.
Being a network-based mobility mechanism, PMIPv6 achieves its goal by enabling the MN to retain its HoA when attaching to a foreign network and delegates the task of securely discovering and updating the MN's Local Mobility Anchor (LMA) to a Mobile Anchor Gateway (MAG). The LMA is the home agent for the mobile node in the Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain. It is the topological anchor point for the mobile node's home network prefix and is the entity that manages the mobile node's reachability state. It is important to understand that the LMA has the functional capabilities of a home agent as defined in Mobile IPv6 base specification (RFC-3775 herein included by reference) and with the additional capabilities required for supporting Proxy Mobile IPv6 protocol.
The MAG fulfills its task by sending a proxy binding update (PBU) message to the LMA thereby requesting a binding of the MN's home network prefix (HNP) to the MAG's egress interface address. The MN's care-of address (CoA) is therefore defined as the MAG's egress interface address. Following a successful binding update, the MN's LMA starts tunneling data packets sent from correspondent node(s) (CN) (i.e., which is kept totally unaware about the MN's mobility) to the MN's CoA, i.e., MAG's egress interface address. The MAG then decapsulates each data packet sent to the MN's CoA and forwards it to the MN. It follows, as mentioned earlier, that the MN will always believe that it is still attached to its home network. The MAG, in that regard, takes great care of nurturing the MN's belief by advertising in unicast mode its home prefix in order to convince it to (re)-configure its HoA.
Unfortunately, the current situation poses at least one problem as a malicious node can learn/detect the MN's HoA or HNP. The HoA/HNP can eventually be used by the malicious node for various wrongdoings. While this is a problem as such, it becomes a more concrete issue as some jurisdictions are considering rules and legislations to diminish its likelihood. An MN's privacy is therefore potentially compromised while switching to and moving across foreign networks. As such, there is a need for a solution that helps preventing HoA and/or HNP disclosure n the context, for instance, of PMIPv6. The present invention provides such a solution.